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This report was carried by the South Korean news agency on March 6 (local time: 23.38) and is being reproduced to give a glimpse into how the current development on the Korean peninsula is viewed in the Republic of Korea. – The Editor

SEOUL (IDN-INPS) – South Korean political parties on March 6 demonstrated mixed reactions to the results of the high-stakes visit to North Korea by President Moon Jae-in's special envoys, which included an agreement to hold a cross-border summit next month.

Shortly after returning from his two-day visit to Pyongyang, Chung Eui-yong, Moon's chief security advisor and head of the South's 10-member delegation, announced a set of agreements with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

LIEGE (IDN | SWAN) – While scholars discussed “Violence in the Postcolonial and Neocolonial World” at a conference in this eastern Belgian city, news of various acts of violence filled the airwaves, underlining the extent to which people have to deal with the issue on a constant basis.

The Liège meeting, February 15-16, focused on both systemic violence (resulting from colonialism and oppression) and individual acts, with discussions highlighting the consequences for society, including ethnic divisions and paranoia.

PARIS (IDN | SWAN) – “Are there bookshops in Nigeria?”, asked a French journalist of famous Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, igniting a firestorm on social media following an event in Paris on January 25.

Many outraged observers accused the journalist of racism and ignorance, while lauding Adichie’s response

“I think it reflects very poorly on French people that you have to ask this question. Come on, it’s 2018,” Adichie replied, after the journalist qualified her question by saying French people knew little about Nigeria, apart from hearing about Boko Haram and violence.

This article was originally published in The Nation on January 24 with the caption: 'The US Has Military Bases in 80 Countries. All of Them Must Close.' It is being reprinted with their permission.

NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – On the weekend of Martin Luther King Day (January 15), Baltimore University fittingly hosted more than 200 activists in the peace, environment, and social-justice movements to launch a timely new initiative, the Coalition Against US Foreign Military Bases.

Ajamu Baraka, Green Party vice-presidential candidate and co-founder of the Black Alliance for Peace, opened the meeting reminding us that Reverend King, in his historic anti-war speech more than 50 years ago at Riverside Church in New York, called the government of the United States “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today” adding that “the war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit,” while warning that “a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

The author is a Brazilian liberation theologian, author and campaigner for the rights of the poor and disadvantaged. He is a professor of theology, ethics and philosophy at universities all over the world and a member of the Earth Charter Commission. This article is a slightly modified version of an article that first appeared in Other News.

RIO DE JANEIRO (IDN) – Most readers will find it difficult to accept what I am going to express here. Even though it is based on the best scientific minds that have been studying the universe, for almost a century the situation of planet Earth and her eventual collapse – or qualitative leap to another level of reality – has not penetrated into either the collective consciousness or the major academic centres.

JACKSONVILLE, Florida (IDN) – After a few drinks, most bankers, economists and investors will admit that money is not wealth. Like inches and centimetres, money is a metric, and it used for tracking real wealth: human ingenuity and technological productivity interacting with natural resources and biodiversity undergirding all human societies along with the daily free photons from our Sun.

So brainwashed are we by the false money meme of “money as wealth” that whenever anyone proposes needed infrastructure maintenance, better schools and healthcare or any public goods, we are intimidated by some defunct economist who says “Where’s the money coming from?” They ought to know better, since, of course money is not scarce, it is just information.

KOLKATA (IDN-INPS) - Shashi Tharoor shredded the colonial mindset at the second author meet organised by Kalam Club at Taj Bengal on December 28. The writer-MP talked about his latest book, An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India, Indian writing in English and debunked some colonial myths during a chat with Malavika Banerjee, the director of Kolkata Literary Meet (Kalam). Excerpts from the conversation on the topic, ‘Is the Indian mind the last British colony?’

BUFFALO (IDN) - As its people of the year, Time magazine recently named the Silence Breakers -- people who have spoken against sexual harassment and launched the hashtag #MeToo into an international phenomenon with more than seven million hits on social media.

Just before the announcement, more than 230 women who work in national security for the United States, from former ambassadors to military personnel, signed a public letter protesting sexual harassment, under the hashtag #MeTooNatSec.

NEW YORK (IDN) - China has presented its position on United Nations reform, and it aligns with Secretary-General António Guterres's own agenda. It pushes for practicalities, such as a transparent process, a stronger peace and security pillar, streamlined internal management and more geographic diversity in hiring practices in peacekeeping and the UN Secretariat.

"The world is undergoing major developments, transformation and adjustment, but peace and security remain the call of our day," the position paper begins, alluding to the upset of the Western-dominated global order. "The trends of global multi-polarity, economic globalization, IT application and cultural diversity are surging forward; and countries are becoming increasingly interconnected and interdependent."

NEW DELHI (IDN) – The world could be too much with us in 2018, in a sense that Wordsworth may never have foreseen. In fact, the New Year would begin with a lot of the world in India when leaders of 10 ASEAN (The Association of Southeast Asian Nations), governments come as Republic Day guests to commemorate 25 years of India-ASEAN relations. Never before has the R-Day had so many international guests.

That may set the tone for another year of hectic diplomacy when Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be supping at the high tables of the G20 (Group of 20), SCO (The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation), BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and the East Asia Summit (EAS) even as the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) may have to deal with serious challenges looming large in the neighbourhood. It is a moot point whether 2018 would be better than 2017.